


So What?

by Edie_Sunshine



Series: Just Two Guys [3]
Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Established Relationship, Fiona Larkin - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, Jimmy O'phelan - Freeform, Kerrianne Larkin, Kissing, M/M, Random Crow-eater
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:42:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edie_Sunshine/pseuds/Edie_Sunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chibs is feeling depressed after a phone call from his daughter and Juice, well, Juice tries to cheer him up, of course!</p><p>Title comes from an Ani Difranco song by the same name- lyrics are at the bottom of the fic</p><p>This is the third part in my untitled Chibs/Juice fic. Posted on Live Journal a while ago but this is the new, improved version. i've shifted it around a bit so hopefully it will read as taking place pre-season 3...</p><p>Beta'd by the lovely SpaceBabe, as always:-) Blame me for any errors though, I had a little PLAY after it came back from beta-ing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	So What?

Phone calls from Kerrianne are always a happiness tinged with worry. 

Chibs sits up on the roof of the club house with his phone clamped to his ear, trying to hear his daughter's voice over the tinny connection. 

From the workshop, Juice can see his silhouette: getting up to pace, sitting and wiping the sweat from his face, fiddling with the laces on his boots. He gets up to pace again, the hand holding his cigarette gesturing wildly, then helplessly, then falling to his side.

Kerrianne's a troubled girl, that much is obvious. With her dad kicked out of the country when she was little and a Republican gangster moving himself in with her mom, she's had an unsettled life. She's not rebellious like Chibs must have been as a kid and when you see a picture of her, you don't think she'd say 'boo!,' but from what Juice has been able to piece together, she's stubborn, and she's been quietly resisting Fi and her step father for weeks now, calling her Daddy in America: playing one side off against the other. 

It's easy to see that Chibs is afraid to get involved, doesn't want to risk antagonising Jimmy, and is desperate to keep his little girl safe. Juice hasn't had many dealings with Jimmy O but from the little he's overheard, the guy is a psycho and there's no telling what he'd do if Kerrianne pushed him too far.

Chibs knows women, can wrap them around his little finger, but that whole screwy set up gets the better of him every time. He comes down from the roof looking every one of his forty something years. 

Jax razzes him a little, slaps him on the back and tells him to take the rest of the day off, go get a beer instead. From the stoop, Clay looks on, angry, but doesn't put his stepson straight, just orders the others to pick up the slack instead.

When Juice finally finishes for the day, it's growing dark. He wanders into the club house to find Chibs lining up shots with his pool cue, his motions vicious. From time to time he reaches for a half-finished bottle of whiskey, takes a draft and then slams it back down again. He shrugs off the well-meaning attentions of a little blonde crow-eater as if she's not even there. 

Juice fetches himself a beer, since there's no one serving at the bar, and wars with himself some. He could go over, challenge Chibs to a game, but he'll probably get shrugged off as quickly as Blondie did. There's no point getting in Chibs' face when he's in a black mood. Juice isn't the person Chibs confides in, not about Fiona. For that, Chibs talks to Bobby, or Jax. Juice is there to coax him out of his bad mood when he's good and ready to be coaxed. 

So, instead Juice just sits it out, watches as Blondie tries again and still gets knocked back. It's pretty funny really, girls just never seem to get bored of the Scot, the way they do with the other Sons. What's weird though is that Juice never feels jealous, not of them. 

Fi though, she's a different matter. Fiona's the girl who keeps Chibs awake at night, staring out into the darkness in his tiny kitchen. Every time her name comes up it's like she's sticking her claws in anew, leaving her mark. Juice would like to tell her to just fuck off and leave Chibs alone, tell her she's had her chance and she blew it, she broke his heart already, she doesn't get to do it again. He's not likely to get the chance though. The best he can hope for is that the woman will stay on her own side of the ocean, leave the Scotsman the hell alone. 

&&&

It's quiet in the club house tonight, the rest of the Sons out elsewhere or home with their old ladies. When Chibs has drunk enough to have trouble lining up his shots, he gives up on it, takes his whiskey bottle and sits over on the scrawny-looking couch in the corner. Juice waits until Blondie has given up and disappeared before he goes over. 

Chibs' head is tipped back against the back of the seat back, his eyes closed. Juice gives his foot a gentle prod with his own and sprawls across the other couch. The older man hardly seems to notice. It's probably a good twenty minutes before he rolls his head so that he can see Juice and then he almost, but not quite, smiles. He returns the kick.

If they were back at either of their houses right now, Juice would have hauled the other man into his arms, held him quietly until he fell asleep or started groping him. As it is, he just asks if Chibs is okay, and receives a sigh in return.

'Fucked if I know, Juicy.' Chibs takes another swig from his drink, scowls at it, and replaces the lid, puts it back on the floor. 

'It was your kid on the phone, right? She okay?'

'Aye, yeah she's just....' Chibs gives up, puffs out his cheeks and rolls his eyes instead. 'What were you like when you were fifteen, Juicy?' 

Juice shrugs. He doesn't really remember. 

'Horny, I guess...' He thinks a little harder. 'I got mad a lot, like, crazy mad... I used to trash stuff...' He shrugs one shoulder and Chibs looks at him like he's trying to picture a Hulk version of him. His lips quirk.

'Guess I should be grateful Kerrianne's not like that...' Then he goes back to looking like he might be thinking about another drink. 

The guy drinks too much. Juice has known the man to take a sneaky shot of whiskey in the morning before work. Chibs doesn't realise anyone's noticed, and probably no one else has, but nobody watches Chibs like Juice does. It's probably a subject for another day, a day when the guy hasn't had his ex-wife and his kid fighting over who knows what.

'What happened?' 

Chibs sighs up at the ceiling, says nothing for a long time, then, 'I can't stand it Juicy. I barely even know her...' His voice is cracking and Juice really wants to just go over there and hold him, tell him it's gonna be okay- even though it's not. 

Kerrianne wasn't raised by Chibs, they're never going to be close, no matter what regrets the guy might have. 

Chibs casts around for a cigarette and when he goes to light it, his hands are shaking. 

'What did she say?'

'Nothin'... Just... her an' Fi aren't gettin' on... I tried talkin' to her but she ain't listening... Told me I didn't get to tell her what to do... Said I wasn't really her D-' He swallows hard, takes a lungful of smoke and claws his hands through his hair. 

Jesus, the guy's killing himself over the kind of shitty thing teenagers say all the time. 

'You know,' Juice sits forward, manages to briefly catch the other man's hand with his own fingertips before Chibs pulls away. 'My sister- not my big sister, the little one. She was always a fuckin' brat and then out of nowhere, she'd start playing nice. All day she'd be the sweetest kid you could ever meet. I'd feel about six feet tall, looking after my baby sister, letting her choose what TV to watch and buying her candy. It's stupid, but I'd feel like I was someone important, you know?' 

He can tell Chibs doesn't, he is the big brother in his household. He still sits quiet though, doesn't say anything.

'I'd feel like a... a big brother, not just the idiot who had to repeat a grade... And then, just when I wasn't expecting it, wham! She'd just turn and hit me with it: I wasn't really her brother, I was just a bit of leftover spunk from some guy mom brought home when she was drunk and that dad- my step-dad- hated me and wanted me out on the street... And I mean, the look on her face, total hatred, like whoa!' 

He takes a gulp of his beer and finds it flat.

'You know the worst thing about it? It wasn't what she'd said- if she was like that all the time, then okay, she's a brat- but no, it was worse 'cause she'd spent all that time setting me up first so I'd be fucking heartbroken... The next time though, I'd still fall for it all over again, 'cause she's my kid sister and I love her.'

'Yeah?' Chibs looks at him with his head on one side, like he can imagine fifteen year old Juice getting crushed by his kid sister, wants to make it okay again. 

Juice shakes his head, gets rid of the memory. 'Girls, man... My mom was right, they're way worse than boys. And she should know, I got three sisters. They're all nuts...' 

Chibs smiles fondly. Juice has no idea if what he was trying to say got through but seeing that smile is a bit like the sun breaking through after a storm. 

He aims another playful kick at the older man's foot and Chibs just shifts so their booted feet press together, heel to heel, toe to toe. It's dumb but it does that weird thing to Juice's insides and he has to gulp back warm beer to keep from saying something idiotic.

'Come on.' Chibs gets to his feet, nods his head towards the door. 'Let's get out of here...Get you home an' put a smile on both our faces,' he adds more quietly when they're almost at the door. 

He reaches out with one arm to grab Juice around the neck, hug him close for a second. If anyone sees them, they'll just think 'brothers' but Juice knows the hug is more than that. 

'Y'know, yer in danger of becoming a very wise man, Juicy Boy...'

&&&

Later, when they're back at Juice's place and Juice is slumped back against his pillow with the electric toothbrush whirring away against his molars, Chibs lies back against his shoulder, ash tray balanced precariously on his own chest and breathes twin streams of smoke out through his nostrils.

'Yer don't really talk about your family... Still see your sisters?' 

Juice shakes his head, casts around for an empty cup to spit into.

'Nah, not Luisa anyway- she's still a fuckin' psycho...'

'What about the others?'

'Huh? Marnie, sometimes... I'm closer to Jojo...'

'The little girlie fighter...'

'That's her... Knock any one of you shitheads on your asses...' 

'Knocked you on yer arse, you mean.'

'Yeah, that too...' Jojo is the one Juice's closest to in age. He used to sneak her into the boxing classes his stepdad insist he attend. She'd take his place in the ring while he snuck off to the arcade.

'You two look like each other?'

'Kinda.' Not really. They used to both wear their hair braided into corn rows so they looked more like each other and could more easily sneak her into the gym and him out of it. 

It had worked for a couple of years until the gym decided to put Jojo in a tournament and they figured it out during the weigh in. 

Of course, Juice was the one got his ass kicked for that... 

'Hm....' Chibs goes quiet and Juice goes back to the bathroom to finish up. He's surprised the other man remembers him telling him about her- Chibs had been three sheets to the wind at the time. 

When he gets back, Chibs is slumped pretty much where he'd left him, rubbing his eyes and casting around for his lighter and smokes.

'You shouldn't smoke in bed,' Juice says, pulling off his shorts, but leaving his t shirt on and sliding beneath the sheets.

'Eh? Oh, thank you, Mister Health an' Safety.' Chibs puts his unlit cigarette back in the pack though, watches Juice disrobe and slides a greedy hand up and down Juice's bare hip as he gets into the bed.

'You keeping that on?'

''Yeah.' Juice snuggles in close, wraps his arms around the other man and pushes his cold feet between Chibs' calves. 'I don't wanna get cold.' 

Chibs snorts as he moves the ashtray back onto the side and fumbles for the light switch. 'Fuckin nesh....' he says fondly, nuzzling Juice's nose with his own.

'What you gonna do about your kid?'

'Like you said, blow over, won't it? She's fifteen. Everyone's fucking horrible at that age.'

Chibs' hands work their way up under Juice's shirt, up the back, then round, under his arm and down the front, pausing to tweak a nipple. 

'Let's see if we can't warm you up...' 

Juice sighs, finds his way up to Chibs' lips, does a little groping of his own. 

Chibs tastes of the weird toothpaste he uses, whiskey and his last cigarette of the night. Juice licks up into his mouth, chasing the flavour, slides his hands down between their close pressed bodies to palm Chibs' erection and swallows his groan. 

Neither one of them is really up for much tonight, it's late, they've both drank too much. It would make more sense to just wake up early tomorrow. But, Juice knows Chibs, knows that he'll just wake up in an hour or two, sit up drinking and obsessing over things he can't change. Best to wear the man out...

&&&

Outside, the stray cats of the neighbourhood are calling to each other. 

Juice finds the right rhythm, Chibs' mouth hot on his own, thinks about getting the lube out. Then he feels a change in the other man, something off in the way Chibs' hips shift against his own. God damn it. 

He pushes Chibs away and sighs, 'Go on, do it.'

'Wha?'

'The cats. They're putting you off.'

'The cats don't put me off, Juicy, that'd be fuckin' stupid.' But the older man is already clambering out of bed, stubbing his foot in the dark and swearing as he comes back from the bathroom with a wet sponge in his hand. 

'They do. You get, I dunno... cat impotence.' 

Juice ducks the playful swat aimed at the side of his head and lays back in the bed to watch as Chibs fights the window open and throws the sponge out. 

The cats erupt into disgruntled screeching, knocking a trashcan over in their hurry to escape the wet. All the lights on the street come on. 

Great, Juice's neighbours already hate him.

'Better?'

'Much,' Chibs says as he tucks himself back under the covers. 

'Yeah, you know the head of the local neighbourhood watch is right next door, Chibbie.' Juice can't keep his voice stern though, not when Chibs gets him around the middle with one of those squeezes that makes him ticklish and convulsive at the same time- bastard. 

'Now what's this about pussy makin' me soft?'

'Idiot,' Juice mutters as he pulls the other man's hands away from where he's ticklish and back down to his ass. 'Not pussy you're here for...'

It's good to hear the other man laughing again properly though. Makes Juice feel like maybe this time he managed to pull Chibs free of Fiona and Ireland and everything that's never gonna get fixed. 

Maybe he was wrong before, maybe he does know how to bring Chibs back from the brink.

**Author's Note:**

> So What?by Ani DiFranco
> 
> who's gonna give a shit  
> who's gonna take the call  
> when you find out that the road ahead  
> is painted on a wall  
> and you're turned up to top volume  
> and you're just sitting there in pause  
> with your feral little secret  
> scratching at you with its claws  
> and you're trying hard to figure out  
> just exactly how you feel  
> before you end up parked and sobbing  
> forehead on the steering wheel
> 
> who are you now  
> and who were you then  
> that you thought somehow  
> you could just pretend  
> that you could figure it all out  
> the mathematics of regret  
> so it takes two beers to remember now  
> and five to forget  
> that i loved you so  
> yeah, i loved you, so what
> 
> how many times undone  
> can one person be  
> as they're careening through the facade  
> of their favorite fantasy  
> you just close your eyes slowly  
> like you're waiting for a kiss  
> and hope some lowly little power  
> will pull you out of this  
> but none comes at first  
> and little comes at all  
> and when inspiration finally hits you  
> it barely even breaks your fall
> 
> who were you then  
> and who are you  
> now that you can't pretend  
> that you can figure it all out  
> subtract out the impact  
> and the fall is all you get  
> so it takes two beers to remember now  
> and three more to forget  
> that i loved you so  
> yeah, i loved you, so what  
> i loved you  
> so what


End file.
